agent-introspectionlisted

# Agent Introspection — Systematic Self-Diagnosis ## Iron Law NO UNSUPPORTED SELF-HEALING CLAIMS. Only assert recovery actions you can actually perform with available tools. ## When to Trigger - 3+ consecutive failures on the same task - Repeating the same approach with different parameters (loop detection) - Context window exceeds 70% without resolution - Error messages repeat with no progress - User explicitly says "you're stuck" or "try a different approach" ## Process ### 1. Failure Capture Stop immediately and record: - **Error type**: syntax_error / type_error / test_fail / lint_fail / build_fail / runtime_error / permission_denied / not_found - **Last 3 tool calls**: what was attempted and what failed - **Context pressure**: approximate context usage percentage - **What changed**: what was the last successful state ### 2. Root Cause Diagnosis Match against known patterns: | Pattern | Symptoms | Root Cause | |---------|----------|------------| | **Loop trap** | Same error 3+ times | Wrong approach, not wrong parameters | | **Context overflow** | Increasingly confused responses | Too much information, need compaction | | **Environment drift** | "Works locally" failures | Missing env var, different tool version | | **Cascade failure** | Fix A breaks B | Underlying assumption is wrong | | **Tool mismatch** | Wrong tool for the job | Need a different approach entirely | ### 3. Controlled Recovery Execute ONLY the smallest safe action: - **Loop trap** → Abandon curren